from the minute you start playing this game it is immediately evident that the graphics arnt as spectacular as your would expect from a big budget AAA frachise, this new installment is supposed to be at the height of its game graphics wise as many fanboys would expect it, but please note this- THIS GAME IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF HIGHEST GRAPHICS MEANING JACK ****!!. On the begining areas yes the graphics and art style seem a bit cartoony and the textures on the faroff landscape look abysmal, but the fact that the faroff landscape has a quake II'ness about it really plays into the soul of this game. the enemies you come across, to start, feel like the full barage of what you'd expect- playing in tune to the feeling you get from a doom type game ("its only doors and corridors till the final boss")

no way is this game in the same leauge as doom- its far above it, and this game in no way gets too mindless, theres always something new and interesting in each new area.

Gameplay:
So when thinking back to the vast array of weapons available in past installment of quake you'd expect to follow the same formula, well fortunately theres been some upgrades to existing weapons, new weapons added, and upgrade to the new awesome weapons along the way, gone is the BFG (at least i havent come across it without a cheat or hack) the BFG is nothing compared to the biggest monster weapon in this game just when you think weapons couldnt get more pentultimate, when you find this bitch of a weapon you'll only be scared to think that the enemies could get any bigger and stronger.

weapons seem to take shorter to reload between rounds, though careful attention must be taken to reload whenever your mags get depleted as the relaod is crucial in many firefights, the weapons really manage to do the job and are a joy to use compared to other FPS's, the full range of weapons are all well suited to different situations and enemies and flicking the weapon toggle will become common fare when up against certain enemy.

the enemy AI is some of the most extreme ive had to deal with in any FPS, in DOOM people would be scared ****less when a thing flew out at you, since the lighting is better and you can move quite fast you feel less helpless when the type of monster that takes 12 rounds of shotgun shells to bring down of charges at you at immence pace- you dont have any surprise attack enemies being deployed behind you type events- your simply clearing the area ahead- sometime you have things come out the ceiling,- if you dont move your certain to be dead- three strikes with a strogg claw and you dead, so this game really is for vetrens of FPS controls, running and side stepping the whole way through.

the tasks in the game arnt so dumb and generic as you would get out of a doom clone- you actually have comprehensive goals to achieve such as destroying strogg communications, or deactivating a security door to get teams to vital areas though getting to a security panal on the other side of a complex can be quite daunting, sometimes your path gets cut and your resigned to crawling through ducts and holes created by debrie falling into buildings, the level of design on damaged areas and wires hanging out everywhere is very good, really adding to the feel your in a true war of civilisations, you will see your comrades being slaughtered and decapitated infront of you, it truly is a warzone throughout the game,

Enemies
the boss battles in this game are truly monumental, and take alot of skill to bring down the boss, some of the earlier bosses later become ordinary strogg infantry which is preety scary, the enemies are bigger and badder with bigger weapons, homing missiles, acid vomit, hallucinogenic breath, super weapons, gigantic walking spiders, the action is glorifyingly intence and you realise how fluid so many enemies on screen can be, you will be chased through multiple rooms -just dont turn your back becuase some enemies are faster than you, they even have snipers and sharp shooters this time around that are capable of serious damage. the new enemies are quite inventive, just when you thought youve seen it all, a new and devestating enemie or boss appears,youll will even meet some prototypes ingame. if you take the biggest enemy from quake 2 this installment has enemies 50 times worse, i'm talking huge hunks of meat and metal with gigantics plasma cannons that cant support their weight on leg and need hover platforms, probably weighing 250 tonnes each but small enough to chase you in corridors- be very afriad.

Story line.
The action isnt made up of FMV's and is all live, many cutscenes allow you to free roam and when your being talked to by your fellow marines you dont need to be around to hear them, you are constantly inside the evolving storyline, from the minute you enter strogg space to landing on the planet, to regrouping and getting orders about taking out targets and hearing other tems on comlink getting sliced and diced leaving you to clean up the job. The plot is simple, but when you arrive your character will face many incredible problems, you will even get processed . you will also get a good incite to the strogg infrastructure, and be working with different personel to take down their systems, you will wade through strogg waste, communications towers, processing areas, mutilation and regeneration, the whole works until what your left with is the working of a alien culture, how they maunfacture the strogg, and theyre weapons, and their research into new technology, they have seriously been busy at work since quake II, and are far more fomidable. its gross when you get further in game and you see what they do with human bodies- far outweights what enemies in other game would do. the story is gripping and you will witness some truly horrendous scenes in game, its a miracle how you character namages to survive through this game.

so

sound
9/10. the sound effects for each enemy and weapon are of the standard any AAA wannabe game should aspire too i gave this score a 9 as i dodnt know how the sound is through a regular speaker setup as i'm using my TFT speakers right now.

gameplay
10/10 highly satisfying, the choice of weapons really adds to the ways in which you cant destroy the strogg and also requires very strategic use in order to survive, the enemy AI is killer, but not impossible once youve figured out a specific stroggs nuances to exploit, the movement is fast and responsive, and the tasks dont feel pointless and that you actually achieveing something and really help to advance the storyline, youll feel a good affinity for your character once you got through some of the extreme story segments.
theres some fantastic parts where you can pilot a strogg war walker or pilot a hover tank, and other similar huge segments that really add to the feeing of transversing an alien landscape and really give this game scale.

replayability
7/10 i played the first go around on difficult setting, there are four difficulties, private, corporal, liutanent, then sarge (i think)
corporal was quite a big challege and i died a good few times on the harder enemies, when i finished i dodnt get any extra unlocks or anything which was dissapointing, but then you got cheats for that. nothing particulaly new after youve completed the game. though it might be fun for anough play through on a harder setting.

Storyline
9/10
not the grace of many FPS's but this game has an immersive evolving story and isnt just the hack and slash its made out to be, theres enough balance of gameplay and story and they always go hand in hand throughout the game. you will get ambushed, lose good men, encounter forgotten enemies, try to destroy strogg strongholds and the strogg will scuper you plans every way they can. theres no in depth drama between characters, but theres enough human interaction to give you the sence that your in a war wit thinking living beings with feelings.

graphics
9/10

ive left out images of the game on purpose as to be able to really see how well the mechanics and graphics work you have to see it in motion, pics wont do it justice, you can see by scaling down the graphics they can squeeze in some good smoke partical effects and some very huge indoor areas with gigantic machienery processes taking place that just wouldnt work if the graphics were scaled to high, the textures look almost doom grade if not better in some places, and the enemies have very fluid motion. the animations are very detailed and they are not generic in the least- theres alot of things happening in the game all the time, which adds to some very vibrant (dark evil) and emotive visuals.

i will add changes to this review is its seen as crap by MB'ers which i wouldnt doubt as this is my first review and i just sorta winged it.

__________________

Crowfoot (American Blackfoot Indian Orator) on his deathbed:"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

Pretty good review... although, it won't convince me to buy it, since I don't like Quake all that much.

for me personally its the best FPS i've played- it was so perfectly executed, i cant think right now of any other FPS i liked better..

__________________

Crowfoot (American Blackfoot Indian Orator) on his deathbed:"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

oh **** i complety forgot.... both are good games, though i dont think of them as the same, one is superior in single player and the other is superior in deathmatches.

if quake 3 had a singleplayer like quake 4 :yikes:

though i'm glad they are seperate games as single player would take the emphasis off deathmatches in quake 3 if it were included.

__________________

Crowfoot (American Blackfoot Indian Orator) on his deathbed:"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

This review is for the online mode only as i think it outstrips single player although i may referance single-player in this review..

so lets cut the crap-

First impressions

OK from a gamers standpoint you will first need a Broadband connection to play this game, If you have that then its a simple matter of setting up an account, when you install BF2 it will automatically install gamespy arcade with it, creating an account is quite straightforward fare- just a simple username and password and you can go on to frag heaven. You may have to switch-off Zone alarm or another firewall software to prevent crashes or login errors-which i had trouble with to start- your FW should adapt itself if its good and you want it on. once you are logged in you enter the multiplayer screen and as long as you have the newest patch you can get upwards of 2500 BF2 servers....Nice Pings in europe are ok for eu servers, but you will litterally see servers for the entire world so you should have good pings on enough servers in your region, experimentation has shown that you will get minimum lags at 150 ping, though its not unlikly the game might lag in a crucial firefight or if your chasing someone in a plane- and these events are crucial to timing, so it can be a headache if you just happen to get a lag at the wrong time, the best quality game ping at 60 and unless its a shaky server (only 4-5 percent are unstable) you wont get any problems. servers with higher pings can take way longer to load a map, which is a pain if you just got kicked from another server by mistaken identity- which i'll go into later. overall, the system is easy to get into and play right from the get-go as long as you pick the right servers.

Gameplay:

in this game youve got a whole shebang of play styles, on the field you have the pick of a variety of character roles including medics, engineers, special forces, anti tank soldier, support and sniper- and all come with their own weapons and vices, how do they play??? well on the ground theres seemless interaction between you and other players, if someones health is low- a medic can heal that person, engineers can fix vehicles- all identified using healthbar system, sniper speaks for itself and special ops is a very intuitive addition as it give the player the option to destroy enemy assets like UAV (un-manned arial survellance vehicle) trailers, that allows all enemies to see your location and blow you out of your hiding place, spec-ops can blow up artillery guns and radar for detecting planes and helicopters. This wealth of gameplay roles adds serious depth and replay value- having extensively played this game, when being a support troop gets boring, doing spec ops is a whole new challenge and gives you alot of military power over as many as 64 players, knocking out enemy assets is essential.

Aswell as assigned roles theres a wealth of vehicles too including transports that holds a couple of players, too tanks, dune buggies motorboats, helicopters and even aircraft, the handeling mechanics of all these vehicles is a monumentus achievement- if youve ever played commanche 4 online- a completely stand-alone helicopter game, the choppers in bf2 handle better than that, the aircraft play as good as in airfighter games with fantastic aircombat for fighter combat fanboys.
In reality your getting the equivalent of 4 games all mixed into one- thats how well integrated it is. all the weapons play out like real world weapons, some wil kill you quicker than others, some have sharp accuracy at long range, compared to others that just fail miserably, but are good for short range firefights and can take down the enemy in 2-3 mag rounds. some reload faster than others, you get different kit assortments, hand guns are standard to all positions, some have grenades or smoke bombs in the kit also.

The large levels are the perfect arena for killing, the aim of the game is to capture your opponants bases by raising your flag in their base, the more bases your team controls on the field, the faster the rate at which the enemy team points run out.
The bases are also used for spawning characters, so if the enemy has all you bases- then no spawning, so defence and attack are serious buisness, and will have all players in killing frenzy taking bases down by any means neccersary, pilots can bomb people on the ground, tanks are quite impregnable if your base happens to get attacks by one. thats why you need anti tank players, every role is justified i the game and highly important, i can think of any other FPS with more gameplay value than this one.

The worst thing about this game is MODs, player and team killer interactivity.
with the inclusion of MODs the game becomes unfair, you may get team killed by some asshat who wanted the f16 but you got there first as there is only 2 jets per team, he might decide to launch a anti tank mille into your jets ass and your history after waiting 5 minutes for the previous pilot to die, if you team kill him back in revenge you may get kicked off the server by MODs which is very unsettling, if youve been playing the game and you racked up 100 kills some being collateral involved- its take one dumbass to run in front of your vehical on purpose and then choose the do not forgive command to get you kicked and no experience earned.- this make me want to throw the PC out the window everytime it happens as you are then banned from your favorite server for the day. you get about 5 unforgiven team kills, give or take depening on the server.

This game is single handedly spoiled by these SAD chicken jerkers that need a life and are the scourge of the servers.

If your in the middle of a firefight and someone clumsly kills you, or a pilot drops a bomb on a bases your 2 seconds from capturing the flag, or a crap commander that launches an artillery just as your taking that base- it can be very frustrating, and cause you to type in abuse and use the F word and the Noob word alot.

But if you can get over thses gripes then theis is a fantastic game from a gameplay standpoint.

Communications:
are also a big part of the gameplay, you have the option to either take on the enemy solo- or you can join a squad, which is like a mini temporary clan on the field, where you can identify squad members on the map by their green icon or name on field. when your in a squad- 6 in all- all those players have ridio communication with eachother, which makes co ordinating attacks on rivals bases much more smarter, as you can plot that every grabs a tank each etc etc, the squad leader who is the one who created and invited people to the squad via the scoreboard menu, has communication with the commander, and the commander can see the whole map and its enemies when he scans the ground using radar. He can then give commands to the squad leaders and the leaders give commands to the rest of the squad, you can also request a supply crate drop for fixing tanks and healing members of your squad, this chain of command prevents the airwaves getting blocked and means that people actually organise themselves into deadly attack teams. obviosly- those with a good mind for attack tactics with create squads for those that just want to attack the enemy unsupported.

as a team you withstand a greater chance of survival and adds greater play value than other basic team based FPS's.

Weapons:
This games is full of them- its armed to the teeth everywhere you look theres something for killing someone, all vehicles are weapons themself incorporating gunner installations, tanks have them too including anit aircraft rockets, though they are really only good against helicopters. theres also machiene guns and anti tank missile turrets dotted around bases plus surface to air missile launchers for invading helicopters.

There are also a series of weapon unlocks as you collect experience points and are unlockable when you reach a new rank. Many of the unlockables are very useful and provide better accuracy, power and round capacity.

the animations on the gun reloads are what we come to expect from this sort of game in the current generation, each weapon creates a need for the player to have a completely different playing style, some are good for up close, others for use where the enemy cant see you- eg. in buildings, cliff side, anti tank rockets take a long time to reload so hiding from a tank is difficult if it takes 3 rockets to take it down- theres no BFGs in this game unfortunately, its traditional weapons, but they add a serious amount of strategy to the game, and force the player to make serious choices on which one is appropriate for any given situation.

you can apply to be commander of the field in the teams menu, this gives you control over team assets, such as the artillery guns, these can inflict serious pain if the commander selets the right portion of the map to bombard and can take out alot of your enemies- getting wacked by falling bombs every five minutes stats to take its toll on your patients after awhile, so more consideration should be given to staying under cover in areas where there alot of your team that the commander can see on his own comander screen.

theres also various bombs and mines such as C4 that sicks to any surface or vehicle although i was dissapointed at the fact you cant place them on other characters which could have been hilarious.

its not impossible to take down a fast moving aircraft if its low enough and you shoot early with the anti tank missile, when i fluked taking down an aircraft i felt pretty good for myself when more than one person saw it- though your ten times more likly to get bombed or gunned down.

Gameplay: Stats

after each match points can be awarded to people who best performed their duties, including points for the top the scorers of the match, after enough points are achieved, in the game menu you can access your HQ menu which shows you awards you have won for performing certain moves, or complicated feats. awards include such things as the purple heart, knife award, medic etc etc, for those that like challenges.

the match points double up as experience and will go towards your character upping its rank, from private to corporal and so forth, the higher you ramk the more authority you have to be commander if you apply for that position lets say,- an icon badge also appears on your name tag on the field so people can see your rank.

Graphics:

For a game of its scale and the fact its online the graphics are marvellous and nice to see running at 60 FPS on a 1mb connection, a good graphics card can display detailed textures from 100 yards away, the partical effects are good, you can get good smogs- but not mega sparks or billowing smoke, but just the minimum it needs to be. the buildings look like buiding, th terrain looks like terrain, everything is to perfect scale, and theres plenty of detail to go round, how a game can play like a jet fighter and have a FPS environment on the ground is mind boggeling, its even possible to see an ant like person and shoot him in a f16 if you have a really good eye.
Theres only a slight bit of glitch where guns might be able to be seen thouth very thin surfaces but rarely happens.

models when blown up or shot behave with a physical realism its scary- their bodies go limp- for instance, if you got a dead monkey and through it out your window- the natural way it just flops on the groud is exactly in the game, very cool animation and funny when you see someone hurtle at a tree and drop dead.

Sound:

with the addition of a new patch recently some of the sounds in the game were improved, everything has a sound, you can hear your enemy talking in their native languages, theres a team caption option for saying basic thing like "i need a ride" or "Sorry man" there about 10 altogether, you also have the option of using microphones, over the internet the sound carries through without problems,
every vehicle, gun, character has its own sound and really makes the game more immersive rather than linear.. the wealth of sounds including background insects and even you clothes when running and things like that are good, each player has its own ears and sounds do sound as if they are approaching or moving away. sounds also change when in or out of vehicles too- so that should be an indictaiont to the depths of sound effect diversity in this game.

Replay Value

the sheer ingenuity of the way the character roles are implemented means you have a whole new skill set to learn every time you try a new character, which adds instant replay value over and over, when you get bored of that, you can try your hand at helicopter flying which takes skill, fighter piloting is almost like a seperate game, and both take time to become pro at. theres around ten maps, with all different terrain styles, they can each be customised by the server master, who can change the size of the Map, for more intence cramped combat and faster matches, you could try transporting other troops for a while, for all of the different roles there is point to be earned so there is good incentive to play them.

Overall i got this game 4 1/2 months ago and still cant put it down, eventually i wish to be at the top of every leader board, many players have attained enough skill to always be at the top, and have found way to always be 30% kills ahead of eveyone else... so theres a big devide between learning and established, this game forever implores you to get a bigger score on any map, and is just plain out right fun.

Conclusion

the end of the last paragraph sums it up- this is a seriously fun game, where anything can happen and you have full freedom to do whatever the hell you want, you given a gun, some tools and vehicles and a huge areana with an interactive environment....great animation and good graphics...

Gameplay 8
It would be ten but is spoiled by team killers. Note: The newest patch has installed a mechanic where by if you teamkill someone you lose 3 points, if people deliberately get in your way while firing you must suffer.

Graphics 8.5
The graphics are supreme for a game of its type and sheer scale, but it could be prettier, with destructible environments and more realistic vehicle destruction.

Sound 9
The sound is very immersive and really tunes you into using it as a tool for detecting where the enemy is in relation to you.

Online Implementation 9

Its well done, easy to use but loading time are on the lengthy side, theres a filter to only get the game servers that you want though no option to exclude servers that only take reserved slots for gameplay, which wastes time on loading just to tell you you cant play on that server.

Replay value 10

Super replayable, too many different things to try out not worth getting into, in this game you can litterrally make it your oyster, theres no end to what you can try different. did i mention you can even skydive from 1400m up??

Overall 9+

__________________

Crowfoot (American Blackfoot Indian Orator) on his deathbed:"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."